Photo Trish Dunell
Respected international bloodstock agent John Foote has been attending the National Yearling Sale in New Zealand for over 50 years, and he returned to Karaka for the historic 100th National Yearling Sale this week.
The Queensland-based agent was active across all three Books at Karaka, purchasing 14 lots in total.
His final purchase was a colt by Armory catalogued as Lot 958 out of the Satono Aladdin mare Hanako, beautifully prepared by Putaruru vendor Stew McGregor.
Photo: Trish Dunell
Foote paid $130,000 for the colt, which was the highest price of Thursday’s inaugural Karaka Summer Sale.
“He's a lovely big three-year-old type,” Foote said. “He’s a lovely moving horse with plenty of him. His pedigree's quite good when you go back into it, being from the family of Zirna and the three-time Hong Kong winner Super Football.
“I just took to him, so we bought him.”
Foote has been impressed with the progeny of Armory, who also had a pair of colts sell for $65,000 each on Thursday and had progeny sell for up to $625,000 at the Ready to Run Sale in November. The Mapperley Stud stallion’s oldest progeny are two-year-olds, and he has already been represented by early winner Silhouette.
“There was one sold earlier for about $65,000 that was with Little Avondale, which was a nice horse and I saw a few last year that I liked as well, so I have liked a good few of them,” Foote said.
Foote’s other Summer Sale purchase on Thursday was Lot 951, a Redwood colt from the draft of Westbury Stud. Foote paid $100,000 for the son of the Sebring mare Florid Affair, who won two races and is the dam of winners Part Time Lover, Mossfair, Ornate and Bid In A Hurry.
Photo: Trish Dunell
“Russell Warwick told me about six weeks ago, ‘I've got one horse for you to buy, and you've got to buy it,’” Foote said. “He said it's the best horse he’s bred for a long time. So we'll see.”
Both Summer Sale colts, along with the majority of Foote’s dozen other purchases for the week, are destined for Hong Kong.
Following on from record-breaking results in the Book 1 and Book 2 sessions, the brand-new Summer Sale achieved an aggregate of $3.43 million, an average price of $31,000, a median of $20,000 and a clearance rate of 81 percent.
“It’s an improvement on the old Festival Sale and Book 3,” Foote said. “There are a lot of horses here that could have been in Book 2. We have been quite impressed with the standard here.”
